Brown 


Remarks  Made  in  N.  C.  Senate 
Dec.  19th,  1860 


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REMARKS 


OF 


HON.  BEDFORD  BROWN, 

OF  CASWELL, 

Made  in  the  Senate  of  North  Carolina,  on  Dec. 
lQth,  1860,  on  the  Resolutions  of  Mr.  Hall, 
of  New  Hanover,  on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr.  Brown  said,  the  time  had  arrived  when  it  was  not  less 
demanded  by  a  sense  of  duty  than  of  interest,  safety  and 
lienor,  that  the  Southern  States  should  make  a  united  demand 
for  a  final  settlement  and  definitive  adjustment  of  the  ques- 
tions of  difference  which  are  now  unhappily  the  sources  of 
discord  between  the  North  and  South,  and  to  forever  exclude 
them  from  the  halls  of  Congress.  To  effect  an  object  which 
should  be  so  dear  to  the  bosom  of  every  lover  of  his  country 
and  her  institutions,  no  terms  could  or  would  be  received  as 
admissible,  that  did  not  fully  go  to  the  root  of  the  evils  of 
which  we  had  such  undeniable  cause  of  complaint.  He 
would  ask,  could  this  most  devoutly  wished  for  con 
tion  ever  be  effected,  while  the  extremists  of  the  Xort 
the  extremists  of  the  South  are  fanning  the  flames 
tional  animosities  by  one-sided  appeals,  sketching  t 
side  of  the  picture  without  giving  the  bright  as  wel 
dark  shades,  which  stern  justice,  as  well  rigid  histori 
require  ?  Mr.  B.  was  certain  that  an  immense — an 
whelming  majority  of  the  people  of  the  slave-holding  Stipes, 
desired  most  anxiously  a  safe  and  honorable  settlement  of 
Vk  these  differences  in  the  Union,  if  possible.  He  was  almost 
*Taa  positively  certain  that  a  decided  majority  of  the  people 

O 

m 


2 

of  the  Northern  and  North-western  States  now  see  the  ne- 
cessity, and  are  ready,  by  State  legislation  by  repealing 
their  personal  liberty  bills  and  other  hostile  enactments, 
together  with  adding  amendments  to  the  federal  constitu- 
tion, to  yield  such  terms  as  would  meet  the  requirements  of 
both  our  honor  and  security.  How  was  it  possible  for  the 
majorities  of  national  men  in  both  sections  who  wish  to 
remedy  these  evils  to  act  with  effect,  when  the  extremes  of 
the  two  sections  were  daily,  in  Congress  and  elsewhere, 
plying  and  lashing  popular  sentiment  with  one-sided  state- 
ments and  irritating  denunciations? 

Was  this  the  manner  of  proceeding  among  the  great  and 
revered  statesmen  of  our  revolution  ?  When  sectional  jeal- 
ousies' sprung  up  during  the  revolution,  and  when  the  present 
federal  constitution  was  about  to  be  framed,  mark  the  dif- 
ference, and  behold  with  sorrow  the  lamentable  descent  in 
statesmanship !  Men  of  higher  resolve  and  nobler  purpose 
never  lived  than  the  statesmen  of  that  day.  With  what 
wonderful  dignity,  argument,  and  elevation  of  character,, 
did  the  speeches  and  addresses  of  these  almost  inspired  men 
go  forth  to  the  world.  Most  of  the  present  generation  of 
popular  speakers  and  debaters  in  legislative  halls,  might,  he 
thought,  find  at  least  benefit  in  recurring  to  these  purest  and 
best  of  models.     They  were  the  great  men  of  a  great  age. 

Mr.  B.  said  he-  had  beheld  with  astonishment — with  inex- 
pressible amazement,  the  scenes  which  here,  in  the  legisla- 
tive halls  for  the  last  four  weeks,  had  been  enacted.  It 
appeared  to  him  more  like  the  vision  of  a  disturbed  imagi- 
nation, than  a  sad  reality.  How  suddenly — nay  with  what 
had  the  scenes  been  shifted  from  those  of  cheerful 
ity  to  those  of  dark  sombre  disunion,  with  the  motto 
ope  impressed  on  its  banner,  and  its  followers  invited 
down  the  stars  and  stripes,  and  plant  in  its  stead 
mer!  Was  this  the  entertainment  to  which  the  peo- 
North-Carolina  were  invited,  in  the  elections  for  mem- 
bers of  the  Legislature  and  President  and  Yice-President  ? 
When  the  honest  voters  of  the  State  were  asked  for  their 
confidence,  and  asked  to  confiie  their  dearest  rights  in  this 
great  crisis,  did  the  scenes  of  the  political  drama  give  token 


tftt 


.i> 


3 

of  any  note  of  preparation  to  tear  down  the  federal  Union, 
unless  for  aggression  or  refusal  of  justice?  Did  the  actors 
in  the  political  drama,  with  rare  exceptions,  proclaim  any  such 
purpose,  grounded  on  the  election  of  a  President?  On  the 
contraiy,  did  not  the  actors  with  rare  and  few  exceptions 
repel  the  charge  of  disunion  in  language  indignant,  and  in 
terms  sometimss  scarce  fit  for  "  ears  polite  \  "  Strange 
shifting  of  scenes  !  Sudden  re-cast  of  characters  !  Unparal- 
leled facing  to  the  left  about !  The  proclaimed  promises  yet 
from  breath  not  long  since  uttered — the  recorded  declara- 
tions made  in  ink  not  long  since  dry,  are  gainsayed  in  a  few 
moons,  and  it  seemed  to  be  the  very  "  error  of  the  moon." 
The  parties  in  this  drama  and  actors  could  not  claim  even 
the  benefit  of  a  three  months  statute  of  limitations,  to  protect 
themselves  against  the  charge  of  political  tergiversation 
and  almost  unexampled  inconsistency. 

Are  we  to  be  hurried  on  by  the  principal  actors  in  this 
great  drama — he  would  say  tragic  drama— are  we  to  be  press- 
ed headlong  with  no  time  to  think,  and  told  in  effect,  that  we 
are  not  free  agents  to  act,  and  that  circumstances  and  neces- 
sity, the  latter  the  tyrant's  plea,  leave  no  other  alternative 
than  to  follow  blindly  the  lead  of  one  or  more  States  ? 

41  My  Author  and  Disposer,  what  thou  bid'st. 
Unargued,  I  obey." 

They  have  spoken — we  have  no  right  to  speak,  but  to  echo 
their  will.     They  have  acted — we  have  no  right  to  act,  only 
to  say  we  are  to  obey.     Where  is  the  professed  devotion  to 
liberty  when  this  language  is  uttered,  and  where  the  love  of 
States's  rights  so  often  spoken  of,  when  this  course  with  re- 
spect to  North-Carolina  is  urged  ?     The  true  English  of  it  i 
that  the  rights  of  States  belong  only  to  the  States  about 
secede,  which  he  wished  them  to  exercise  undisturbed, 
that  others  are  to  be  shorn  of  their  own  sovereignty — s| 
of  the  attributes  of  sovereignty,  the  right  to  think  and 
right  to  act,  and  to  wheel  into  line  as  attendants  and  satellite 
by  a  law  above  their  own  control.     In  other  words,  we  ar 
to  have  a  Southern  "  higher  law"  overruling  the  will  of  our 
people,  and  overruling  the  very  sovereignty  of  our*  States^ — » 
showing  that  Northern  and  Southern  extremes  meet  in  a 


4 

"  higher  law"  setting  aside  State  rights  and  constitutional 
obligation. 

Mr.  B.  would  not  consent  to  surrender  the  rights  and  sover- 
eignty of  North-Carolina  to  any  people  on  earth,  foreign  or  do- 
mestic. Let  us  deliberate  as  freemen  in  this  great  emergen- 
cy, wisely,  firroh',  prudently,  as  becomes  the  intrepid  men  of 
a  Republic  as  to  what  is  best  for  our  safety  and  honor.  Let 
us  yet,  in  the  hope,  even  after  States  have  seceded,  that  by 
maintaining  our  position  firmly  in  the  Union,  the  border  slave- 
States  and  those  adjacent  may  yet  demand  and  receive  terms- 
to  enable  them  to  re-construct  the  constitution— about  which 
I  have  no  doubt,  and  by  which  we  shall  be  the  greatest,  hap- 
piest, and  most  prosperous  people  on  earth ;  and  that  all  the 
sisterhood  of  States  will  again  be  numbered  in  one  great  con- 
federated family  with  ample  guaranties  to  protect  all.  Let 
us  act  like  the  prudent  Mariner,  who,  when  his  vessel  is> 
tempest-tossed,  casts  around,  observes  the  weather,  looks  on 
the  broad  ocean  before  him,  and  determines  on  what  course 
is  best  to  save  the  vessel  from  the  peril  which  surrounds  it, 
before  he  takes  a  new  departure.  And  so  with  a  bewildered 
traveller  when  he  comes  to  several  forks  leading  in  different 
directions,  a  little  delay  in  examining  for  the  right  road  will  of- 
ten save  him  from  being  involved  in  difficulties — sometimes 
in  bogs  and  quicksands,  and  the  trouble* of  taking  to  the  back 
track  to  escape  from  the  consequences  of  precipitation  and 
rash  decision. 

Mr.  B.  had  heard  with  sorrow  and  profound  regret,  the 
sadfrotes  with  which  the  Senator  from  New  Hanover,  (Mr. 
Hall,)  had  pronounced  the  funeral  knell  of  the  federal  Union 
and  consigned  it  to  "  the  tomb  of  all  the  capulets."     He  re- 

etted  that  while  the  Senator  had  paid  such  marked  respect 

nch  names  of  evil  omen  as  Sumner,  Seward  and  others,. 

ading  their  fanatical  effusions  to  the  Senate,  that  he  had 

paid  like  respect  to  such  names  as  Franklin  Pierce,  Geo. 

Dallas,  Daniel  S.  Dickinson,  Commodore  Stockton,  the 

quent  Vallandigham,  and  many  other  pure  and  intrepid 

atriots  of  the  North,  whose  noble  sentiments  in  favor  of  the 

constitutional  rights  of  the  South  would  be  more  refreshing 

to  us.     He  regretted  that  the  Senator  bad  not  dwelt  more  at 


large  on  the  million  and  a  half  of  undaunted  patriots  of  the 
North,  who  had  stood  by  us  and  cast  their  votes  against  Lin- 
coln. The  Senator's  speech  was  a  sample  of  that  kind  of  one- 
sided speeches,  by  which  extreme  men  North  and  South  had 
lashed  up  sectional  feelings  to  their  present  height.  Because 
bad  men  in  the  North,  taking  advantage  of  the  disruption  of 
the  Democratic  party  had  banded  together — old  whigs,  freesoil 
democrats  and  abolitionists — and  for  the  first  time  in  the  his- 
tory of  onr  government  elected  a  President,  is  that  any  rea- 
son for  denouncing  the  whole  North  ? 

Mr.  E.  said  Southern  ehivalry,  Southern  honor,  severe  his- 
toric truth,  all  required  that  these  illustrious  names,  and  a 
million  and  a  half  of  men  of  the  North,  called  by  us  in  the 
Breckinridge  campaign  our  brothers  and  allies  in  a  common 
cause,  should  not  be  ignored.  Is  it,  he  would  ask,  in  the  true 
spirit  of  knighthood,  because  they  had  fallen — and  not  by  a 
large  majority  of  the  popular  vote — to  abandon  them?  Their 
defeat  and  that  of  the  Democratic  party  was,  he  was  confi- 
dent, brought  about  by  the  conduct  of  the  delegations  of  the 
seven  cotton  States,  which  seceded  at  Charleston,  and  which 
fatal  movement,  by  a  train  of  events,  had  compelled  consti- 
tution, Union-loving  men  to  withdraw  afterwards  at  Balti- 
more. If  the  delegations  of  the  seven  cotton  States  had  not 
withdrawn  at  Charleston,  there  would  have  been  a  moral  cer- 
tainty of  obtaining  a  platform  of  principles,  substantially  as 
strong  and  with  principles  the  same,  as  the  platform  required 
by  their  State  conventions.  The  resolution  to  which  he  re- 
ferred, was  adopted  by  a  committee  of  the  New  York  dele- 
gation in  conference  with  the  seven  slaveholding  States 
which  remained  in  the  Convention — was  submitted  to  the 
entire  New  York  delegation,  assented  to  by  them  in  ful 
meeting,  and  a  pledge  given  by  them  to  support  it  in  Coi 
ventio:\  The  resolution  is  as  follows,  to  be  found  in  the  ry| 
■ceedings  of  the  Convention  at  Charleston  :  ' 

"  Resolved,  That  the  citizens  of  the  United  States  have  an  equal  right 
settle   with   their  property   in   the  Territories  of  the  United  States  ;  anj 
that,  under  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  whicbl 
we  recognize  as  the  correct  exposition  of  the  constitution  of  the  United 
States,  neither  the  right  of  persons  or  property  can  be  destroyed  or  impaired 
by  congressional  or  territorial  legislation." 


6 

Here,  then,  was  a  resolution  as  explicit  and  as  comprehen- 
sive as  language  could  make  it,  declaring  the  equal  rights  of 
the  citizens  of  the  States  to  settle  with  their  property  in 
the  territories  ;  deelairing  that  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  is  a  correct  exposition  of  the  constitution  of  the  Unit- 
ed States,  and  that  neither  the  right  of  persons  or  property 
can  be  impaired  or  destroyed  by  Congressional  or  Territorial 
legislation.  The  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  Unit- 
ed States  declares  that  slaves  are  not  only  property  in  the 
Territories,  hut  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  department  of  the 
government  to  protect  them  as  property.  The  delegations  of 
the  States  which  withdrew  at  Charleston,  or  most  of  them, 
remained  some  days  there,  expressing  a  desire  to  return  if 
their  platform  of  principles  was  complied  with.  The  resolu- 
tion referred  to,  as  he  knew,  was  shown  to  many  of  them 
in  private  interviews,  and  known  to  all,  yet  they  declined 
doing  so.  By  this  course  they  prevented  the  passage  of  a 
resolution — for  by  their  votes  it  could  have  been  carried — as 
strong  virtually  as  their  own  State  conventions  had  adopted, 
for  the  resolution  b}r  adopting  the  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  which  asserted  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  government  to 
protect  property  in  the  Territories,  recognized  fully  the  prin- 
ciple of  protection.  The  presence  of  these  delegations  would 
not  only,  as  he  believed,  have  secured  the  passage  of  the  res- 
olution, but  they  could  under  the  two-thirds  rule  have  defeat- 
ed Mr.  Douglas,  and  in  all  probability  have  nominated  and 
elected  some  such  national  man  as  Daniel  S.  Dickinson  ;  and 
a  united  nomination  would  no  doubt  have  been  victorious- 
over  Lincoln.  Should  those  who  brought  this  calamity  on 
the  country,  or  at  least,  who  are  largely  responsible  for  it, 
now  be  followed  in  their  precipitate  course  in  overthrowing 

le  federal  Union,  without  exhausting  all  proper  means  first 
a  settlement,  just,  safe  and  honorable  to  ourselves  ?     Let 

[\the  States  interested  in  slave  property  act  together  in 
iking  their  demands,  and  act  as  one,  if  proper  terms  are 
Lot  conceded. 

The  Senator  from  New  Hanover,  (Mr.  Hall,)  in  his  recital 
of  the'wrongs  and  injuries  which  the  North  had  inflicted  on 
the  South,  had  continued  the  same  one-sided  statement,  and 


7 

ignored,  or  seemed  to  ignore  the  great  and  essential  aid  Which 
the  true-hearted  national  men  of  the  North  had  rendered  us. 
Mr.  B.  said  there  were  no  words  of  reproach,  no  epithet  of  de- 
nunciation that  the  abolition  traitors  of  the  North,  acting  in 
conjunction  with  British  emissaries,  did  not  merit.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  no  language  of  eulogy  that  the  good 
and  true  men  there,  who,  rising  above  sectional  feelings,  and 
standing  with  us  on  questions  of  peace  and  war,  were  not 
entitled  to  from  our  hands.  Let  the  anathema  maranatha  be 
pronounced  against  the  traitors  who  had  nullified  the  laws 
and  constitution  in  the  North.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the 
spirit  of  Southern  honor  and  Southern  chivalry,  let  justice 
be  done  though  the  heavens  fall — give  honor  to  whom  honor 
is  due. 

The  Senator  in  charging  grievances  and  injuries  by  the 
North,  again  ignores  the  noble  deeds  of  our  friends  there. — 
By  their  aid  Southern  Presidents  have  been  elected  and  di- 
rected the  policy  of  the  government  for  two-thirds  of  the  time 
the  government  has  been  in  operation  ;  and  when  Southern 
men  were  not  Presidents,  with  rare  exceptions  such  men  as 
Pierce  and  Buchanan  have  governed  with  principles  in  har- 
mony! with  ours.  History  awarded  to  Robert  P.  Livingston, 
of  New  York,  more  credit  for  the  purchase  and  acquisition  of 
Louisiana  than  any  other  statesman  next  to  Mr.  Jefferson. — 
He  was  the  untiring  negotiator,  who,  afterwards  joined  by 
Mr.  Monroe,  effected  the  treaty  with  Napoleon.  True-heart- 
ed national  men  of  the  North  voted  with  Southern  men  for 
the  fifteen  millions  to  purchase  it,  and  for  the  ratification  of 
the  treaty.  Its  acquisition  not  only  saved  the  federal  Union 
from  the  alarming  spirit  of  discontent  and  disunion  pervad- 
ing the  entire  Western  and  South-western  States — from  the 
fact  that  the  free  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  had  been  de- 
nied them,  and  the  great  outlet  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  closed 
— but  it  established  the  institution  of -slavery  on  a  greatly 
firmer  basis  than  before,  by  the  incalculable  resources  which 
it  opened  to  slave  labor,  and  the  command  which  it  gave  to 
the  siave  States  of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  The  larger  portions 
of  the  States  of  Mississippi  and  Alabama,  held  then  as  terri- 
tory of  the  State  of  Georgia,  had  been  purchased  of  Georgia 


by  the  United  States,  and  erected  into  great  and  flourishing 
States  by  the  aid  of  votes  from  Northern  statesmen.  Flori- 
da had  been  purchased  of  Spain  ;  a  Northern  Secretary  of 
State  having  negotiated  the  treaty  for  its  purchase.  The  In- 
dian treaties,  wars  and  removal  of  Indians  from  Florida  had 
cost  the  government  of  the  United  States,  first  and  last,  he 
supposed,  not  less  thirty  millions  of  dollars.  The  same  na- 
tional men  had  contributed  speeches  and  votes  to  effect  these 
objects.  The  Indians  occupying  a  portion  of  the  soil  of 
North-Carolina,  Tennessee,  near  a  fourth  of  the  entire  soil  of 
Georgia,  a  large  portion  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi,  were 
treated  with,  the  soil  purchased  and  they  removed,  thus  am- 
plifying immensely  the  agricultural  resources  and  population 
of  the  South.  These  great  measures  were  effected  by  the  aid 
of  such  men  as  Silas  Wright,  Franklin  Pierce,  and  their  com- 
patriots. The  acquisition  of  Texas  was  also  made  by  the 
game  kind  of  patriotic  aid. 

While,  therefore,  he  would  again  repeat,  that  no  language 
could  express  the  contempt  for  the  sectional  traitors  who  had 
made  war  on  us,  no  language  was  too  lofty,  no  eulog}7  too 
great,  to  commemorate  the  deeds  of  those  who  had  stood  by 
ns  in  sunshine  and  in  storm,  and  the  million  and  a  half  of  true 
men  who  stand  on  the  solid  rock  of  the  constitution.  If  they 
and  their  services  are  to  be  ignored — if  they  are  to  be  includ- 
ed in  the  sweeping  denunciation  against  the  entire  North — 
this  language,  striking  at  friends  as  well  as  foes — he  would 
ask,  where  has  good  faith  among  men  fled  ?  where  is  that 
sentiment  of  brotherhood  which  was  proclaimed  in  all  the 
highways  a  few  months  since?  and  where  is  nationality 
gone?  Is  the  plighted  faith,  which  binds  men  together  who 
6tand  together  in  a  common  cause — no  matter  in  what  lati- 
tude— to  be  violated  ?  Are  we,  because  defeat  has  perched 
on  our  banner,  and  that  brought  on  by  the  violent  men  of 
our  own  party,  with.  Yankee  calculation  to  cut  loose  from 
one  million  and  a  half  of  true  Northern  friends,  and  cry  save 
himself  who  can  ?  If  this  is  in  the  code  of  Southern  honor 
and  Southern  gallantry,  I  confess  I  have  now  for  the  first  time 
learned  it. 

Mr.  B.  said  this  million  and  a  half  of  national  men  of  the 


9 

North  are  the  only  friends  which  the  shareholding  States 
have,  outside  of  those  States,  in  the  civilized  world.  We  can- 
not shut  onr  eyes  to  the  fact  that  England — which  has  heen 
the  evil  genius  that  has  haunted  us  as  colonies  and  independ- 
ent States — is  the  deadly  foe  of  our  government  and  the  slave 
institution.  The  visit  of  her  Prince  and  the  nolle  spies  who 
accompanied  him  to  this  country,  shows  their  old  rancor. — 
Slave  States  were  treated  with  no  respect,  while  their  visit  to 
Richmond  gave  an  opportunity  to  their  calumnious  writers 
and  editors  to  libel  us.  That  a  deep  design  lurked  beneath 
this  visit,  he  fully  believed.  The  Canadas  were  the  ostensible 
objects  of  the  visit,  while  the  United  States  were  the  real  ob- 
jects of  diplomatic  attach.  The  Prince  was  the  mere  de- 
coy duck  to  conceal  more  effectually  the  old  crafty  diplomat- 
ic spies,  who  were  cunuingl}T,  under  the  guise  of  smiles  and 
friendship  to  our  country,  to  look  deeply  into  the  affairs  of 
state  here,  and  sound  the  union  or  disunion  sentiment,  and 
to  insinuate  as  much  British  influence  as  possible  in  North- 
ern sentiment,  to  re-establish  their  ascendancy.  It  was  a 
remarkable  incident  in  our  history  with  England,  that  when 
Jefferson  from  Paris  joined  Adams  in  London,  soon  after  the 
acknowledgment  of  our  independence,  to  make  a  commercial 
treaty,  on  being  presented  to  George  the  Third,  after  a  cold 
reception,  he  turned  his  back  on  our  Ministers.  Our  inde- 
pendence had  just  been  gained  ;  hatred  followed  its  establish- 
ment. It  is  another  striking  inci  'ent,  that,  for  the  first  time 
in  eighty-four  years,  since  our  independence,  a  British  Prince 
makes  a  general  tour  through  the  Northern  and  Western 
States  jnst  at  the  moment  when  the  elements  of  sectional  strife 
were  doing  their  work  of  destruction,  in  overthrowing  our 
federal  system,  and  with  it,  paving  the  way  to  monarchy.  A 
profusion  of  smiles  and  a  shower  of  noble  and  royal  compli- 
ments have  suddenly,  and  for  the  first  time,  fallen  upon  us. 
The  British  government  and  the  British  nation  are  notorious- 
ly the  most,  selfish  and  heartless  on  earth.  They  move  only 
for  a  purpose  ;  when  they  smile  on  the  masses,  it  is  to  betray. 
They  were  pirates  on  the  ocean  for  five  hundred  years,  vio- 
lating the  flag  of  every  nation  and  capturing  their  vessels, 
until,  in  the  war  of  1812,  we  taught  them  some  lessons  as  to 
the  law  of  nations.     Their  history  is  crimsoned  with  the  blood 


10 

of  Ireland  and  the  East  Indies  and  other  regions  of  the  world, 
where  the  iron  hoof  of  British  conquest  has  trodden.  He 
honored  the  Irish  Regiment  of  New  York  for  refusing  to  at- 
tend at  the  ceremonies  of  receiving  the  representatives  of  a 
government,  which  government  was  stained  with  the  murder 
of  Robert  Emmett  and  his  compatriot  United  Irishmen.  The 
train  which  she  had  laid  more  than  sixt}T  years  since,  for  the 
dissolution  of  onr  Union,  was  now  in  a  rapid  state  of  consum- 
mation. Had  her  wily  statesmen  come  at  this  period  of  our 
national  woe  to  look  on,  under  the  guise  of  friendship,  and  wit- 
ness its  too  successful  workings  ?  He  feared  the  Greeks  bring- 
ing presents.     It  was  Nero  fiddling  while  Rome  was  hurning. 

Mr.  B.  would  say  a  word  or  two  to  the  Senator  from  Jack- 
son— a  county,  lie  would  say,  bearing  a  very  good  name. — 
The  Senator  (Mr.  Thomas)  has  discovered  that  those  who  are 
opposed  to  rash  action  are  submissionists — an  imported  phrase 
from  some  other  States,  where  it  has  been  used,  for  the  w-mt 
of  a  better  argument,  to  enlist  the  weak  and  timid  ;  and  that 
the  Tories  of  the  revolution  had  counselled  submission  to 
George  the  Third.  The  Tories  were  of  that  desponding  class 
of  persons,  said  Mr.  B.,  who  had  no  hope,  and  doubtless  if 
there  could  be  a  resurrection  of  them,  on  this  occasion,  fhe 
Senator  from  Jackson  would  receive  their  loudest  applause 
for  aiding  in  the  attempt  to  pull  down  the  free  government 
which  the  patriots  of  the  revolution  won  by  their  valor,  and 
which  the  Tories  so  hated.  The  privileged  orders  of 'Britain 
would  no  doubt  join  in  hosannas  to  those  who  were  doing  the 
self-government  of  man  so  much  injury,  and  that  of  crowned 
heads  so  much  benefit. 

The  Senator  also  had  ridiculed  the  idea  of  delay  in  our  ac- 
tion. A  wise  delay  was  oftener  right  >than  wrong.  Precipi- 
tate action  was  generally  both  unwise  and  wrong.  Gen. 
I  Washington,  at  many  periods  of  the  revolution,  and  especial- 
ly in  his  campaigns  in  New  Jersey,  was  often  reproached  by 
some  of  the  hotspurs  of  that  day  with  pursuing  a  Fabian 
policy — sometimes  charged  with  cowardice  ;  and  if  living 
now  would  probably,  by  some  of  the  young  America's*,  be 
called  an  old  fogy.  Washington,  unsurpassed  in  moral  as  lie 
was  in  physical  courage,  spurned  the  reproaches  of  military 


11 

fops,  and  when  they  rudely  asked  him  how  long  he  was  go- 
ing to  retreat,  replied  that  he  would  retreat,  if  necessary,  to 
the  mountains  of  Virginia — plant  the  flag  of  the  country 
there,  and  rallv  its  brave  inhabitants  to  its  defence.  What 
was  the  result?  Why  Washington,  by  a  little  delay,  gained 
the  splendid  victory  of  Trenton,  and  made  the  glorious  at- 
tacks at  Princeton  and  Monmouth,  and  ended  the  war  of  the 
revolution  in  a  blaze  of  glory  at  Yorktown.  What,  went  with 
his  accusers,  Generals  Charles  Lee  and  Horatio  Gates,  both 
native  Englishmen,  and  who  had  been  trying  to  supplant  him 
as  Commander-in-Chief?  Why,  in  a  short  time  after  the  con- 
spiracy was  formed,  and  Washington  was  accused  of  timidi- 
ty and  delay,  Lee  was  disgraced  in  the  battle  of  Monmouth; 
and  Gates  having  been  sent  South  to  take  command  of  the 
Southern  army,  in  hot  haste  made  an  attack  on  the  British 
army  at  Camden,  and  was  signally  overthrown,  and  such  was 
his  precipitate  flight,  with  whip  and  spur,  that  it  is  said  he 
reached  Hillsborough,  from  the  field  of  his  defeat,  in  a  day 
and  night.  The  moral  of  this  is,  that  rash  precipitation  is  of- 
ten great  folly,  and  prudent  delay,  generally,  great  wisdom. 

If,  said  Mr.  B.,  the  country  should  unfortunately  become 
involved  in  civil  broils,  he  hoped  the  Senator  from  Jackson 
would  fly  to  the  rescue — place  himself  at  the  head  of  the  red 
men,  who  yet  linger  in  his  region  of  country  ;  and,  from  his 
gallantry,  we  may  expect  that  he  will  not  be  found  in  the 
rear,  but  wiil  lead  on  the  front  in  defending  the  country. 

Mr.  B.  said,  if  he  had  not  known  so  well,  by  actual  per- 
sonal observation  in  Congres  many  years  since,  how  and 
when  this  slavery  agitation  received  aid  and  comfort,  and 
first  began  to  assume  any  thing  like  size  and  proportion,  and 
narrowly  watched  its  progress  ever  since,  he  might,  too,  be 
for  immediate  disunion.  The  abolition  party  undoubtedly 
laid  the  foundation  of  it.  Their  strength,  however,  did  not, 
in  the  last  one  or  two  years  of  General  Jackson's  administra- 
tion, consist  of  more  than  eight  or  ten  abolitionists  proper  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  and  three  or  four  in  the  Sen- 
ate. The  States  of  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  New  York, 
Maine,  New  Hampshire,  Connecticut  and  all  the  North-west- 
ern States,  including  the  State  of  Ohio,  had  resolutions  on 
their  statute  books  at  that  time  almost  as  strong  as  respected 
our  constitutional  rights  regarding  slavery,  as  North-Carolina 
or  Virginia.  The  debates  in  Congress  of  that  period  will 
show  that  the  miserable  effusions  of  such  miscreants  as  Gar- 
rison, then  in  utter  obscurity,  and  his  paper  of  very  limited 
circulation  at  that  time,  even  in  Massachusetts,  were  brongbi 
into  the  Houses  of  Congress,  held  up  as  Northern  sentiment 


12 

by  exrteme  men  of  the  South  who  were  then  bitterly  oppos- 
ed to  General  Jackson  and  the  Democracy,  and  whose  names 
were  afterwards  found  recorded  against  him  in  the  resolution 
of  censure  which  the  Senate  afterwards  expunged,  and  which 
he  had  the  pleasure  of  voting  to  expunge.  These  extreme 
men  at  the  same  time  denounced  the  entire  North  as  aboli- 
tion, while  at  the  very  moment  the  Northern  Democracy  and 
other  conservative  men  were  voting  with  us  on  all  questions 
of  practical  importance — on  the  slavery  question,  on  the  trea- 
ties and  appropriations  to  remove  the  Indians,  to  admit  slave 
States,  and  all  others  in  which  the  South  had  essential  inter- 
ests. Thse  speeches  were  eagerly  republished  and  circulated 
by  the  abolitionists  among  the  people  ot  the  North,  with  in- 
snlting  comments  on  those  of  the  North  who  acted  with  the 
South.  At  the  same  time,  the  contemptible  effusions  of  the 
few  abolition  members  of  Congress  would  be  sent  forth 
among  the  people  of  the  South  by  extreme  men  of  the  South 
and  its  newspaper  organ  at  "Washington,  as  Northern  sentiment. 
The  newspaper  organ  at  Washington  of  the  extreme  men  of 
the  South,  soon  after  the  tariff  question  was  settled  by  Mr. 
Clay's  compromise,  declared  that  it  was  manifest  that  the 
South  could  not  he  united  on  the  tariff  question,  and  that  the 
slave  question  was  the  only  one  that  could  unite  them.  Agi- 
tation on  the  slave  question,  with  this  as  the  motto  and  rule 
of  action,  then  commenced  between  the  extreme  North  and 
South,  thrown  like  a  shuttle  back  and  forth,  by  which  the 
monster  of  abolitionism  was  fed,  and  its  size  greatly  increas- 
ed. It  had  been  a  system  of  action  and  re-action,  of  opera- 
tion and  co-operation  more  or  less  ever  since,  the  abolitionists 
of  the  North  abusing  the  slaveholder  and  his  sentiments,  and 
his  ravings,  instead  of  the  speeches  of  Pierce,  Buchanan,  and 
such  like  men,  sent  forth  in  the  South  as  Northern  sentiment  / 
whilu  the  speeches  of  extreme  Southern  men  in  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States,  placing  all  the  laboring  classes,  farmers 
and  all  of  the  North  on  an  equality  with  our  slaves,  were  ea- 
gerly and  talsely  seized  on  by  the  abolitionists,  and  circulated 
with  provoking  comments  as  Southern  sentiment.  This  sys- 
tem had  been  kept  up  by  demagogues  and  disunionists  of 
both  sections  for  twenty-four  years  past,  until  it  had  enabled 
the  abolitionists  to  break  down  the  noblest,  and  at  one  time 
the  most  powerful  political  organization  on  the  side  of  the 
constitution,  whether  as  to  number  or  talents,  that  had  ever 
existed  in  this  or  any  other  country.  Whatever  difference  of 
opinion  may  have  existed  between  these  extremes  as  to  the 
institution  of  slavery,  they  were  co-workers  and  allies  in  their 
common   purpose  of  destroying  the  Union.     Andrew  Jack- 


13 

son,  in  the  presence  of  hundreds  now  living,  charged  this 
agitation  at  the  time  on  the  extreme  men  North  and  South. 
and  charged  them  with  designs  of  breaking  up  the  Union. 
The  newspaper  organ  at  Washington  at  that  day — known  to 
have  spoken  the  sentiments  of  Andrew  Jackson — is  filled  with 
these  charges,  with  the  actors  designated.  He  knew  also 
that  that  pure  patriot,  the  late  William  R.  King,  of  Alabama, 
also  beheld  with  decided  disapprobation  the  agitation  of  the 
slavery  question  at  that  time,  by  the  extremes  of  the  North 
and  South.  Thus,  by  a  system  of  extreme  doctrines  and  ex- 
treme measures — the  latter  sometimes  yielding  only  the  most 
bitter  fruits — had  our  noble  Democratic,  and  other  constitu- 
tional allies  of  the  North  been  borne  down,  and  the  aboli- 
tionists and  other  political  combinations  who  hated  with  a 
deep  hate  the  old  Democracy,  had  been  victorious;  for  which, 
with  the  ca  ises  mentioned,  they  had  been  largely  indebted 
to  the  seceders  at  Charleston,  for  striking  a  blow  at  the  De. 
mocratic  organization  which  rendered  it  powerless  to  con- 
tend with  the  enemies  of  the  constitution. 

Was  it,  he  would  ask,  generous,  when  our  noble  allies 
were  prostrated  by  these  causes,  in  which  extreme  Southern 
men  had  acted  a  conspicuous  pari,  to  cut  loose  from  them 
and  desert  them  because  of  temporary  defeat?  Was  it 
manly  after  such  strong  appeals  to  stand  by  us  in  the  late 
election,  to  fly  whit  precipitate  haste  out  of  the  Union,  and 
make  no  common  struggle  Avith  our  allies  to  repair  the  losses 
of  the  past  and  demand  security  for  the  future?  No,  said 
Mr.  B.  let  us  for  the  present  stand  by  our  coloi'3,  and  not 
retreat  panic-stricken  from  the  Union.  Wellington  had  won 
his  great  victory  at  Waterloo  by  standing  firm  in  position — 
precipitancy  would  have  destroyed  him  in  two  hours.  The 
position  of  strength  of  the  border  States  and  others  who  do 
not  secede  now,  is  to  call  State  Conventions — lay  down  our 
principles  of  action,  call  a  general  convention  of  all  the  slave- 
holding  States;  let  that  Convention  distinctly  set  forth  the 
terms  on  which  we  will  alone  consent  to  continue  members 
of  the  Confederacy.  Let  these  terms  be  presented  to  the 
Northern  States,  either  in  their  capacity  as  separate  States, 
or  in  a  National  Convention  of  all  the  States,  and  he  had 
no  doubt  that  we  could  obtain  every  guarantee  demanded 
by  our  safety  and  honor — co-operation  and  a  united  demand 
by  all  the  Southern  States,  would  carry  with  it  a  weight 
that  could  not  fail  to  be  respected  and  responded  to  favor- 
ably. There  is  weakness  in  separate  action,  strength  in 
Union.  Whether  we  make  demands  before  or  after  Lincoln's 
inauguration,  we  can,  he  had   no  doubt,  get  them  complied 


14 

with.  The  idea  of  resistance  or  disunion  on  account  of  Lin- 
coln's election,  if  carried  out  in  practice,  is  fraught  with 
destruction  to  Democratic  principles  and  at  war  with  all 
social  safety.  If  there  is  to  be  an  appeal  to  arms  by  the  de- 
feated party  in  presidential  elections,  it  opens  up  a  more 
horrid  future  than  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  any  nation.  We  at 
once  fall  to  the  level  of  Mexico  and  Mexicans,  the  most  de- 
graded and  abject  nation  on  earth.  That  nation  has  been 
scourged  for  forty  years  by  wars  among  themselves  on  ac- 
count of  defeated  parties  for  the  Presidency.  It  has  become 
a  bye-word  of  reproach  among  the  nations  of  the  earth- — the 
country  impoverished,  property  destroyed,  and  no  one  safe 
from  the  hand  of  violence  and  rapine.  Miramon  and  Jaraz 
■ — one  the  candidate  of  the  party  claiming  rightful  election, 
the  other  the  leader  of  the  opposite  party,  are  the  present 
actors  in  the  bloody  tragedy  in  that  country.  If  the  sword 
is  to  be  substituted  as  the  arbiter  of  elections  instead  of  the 
ballot  box,  the  horrors  of  civil  war  would  be  more  aggravated 
here  than  almost  in  any  other  country,  because  of  the  daring 
character  of  the  American  Anglo-Saxon  race.  When 
"  Greek  meets  Greek,  then  comes  the  tug  of  war." 

Is  the  glorious  principle  of  self-government  by  the  people 
to  go  down  in  blood,  civil  war  and  darkness,  asked  Mr.  B.  ? 
Are  mankind  again  destined  to  be  rode  by  desperate  military 
adventurers,  with  no  safety  for  persons  or  property- — property 
seized  by  the  strong  hand  of  power,  and  the  liberty  of  the 
citizen  trampled  under  the  bloody  hoof  of  civil  dissensions^ 
These  said  Mr.  B.,  are  most  solemn  atid  serious  considera- 
tions, addressing  themselves  with  more  than  solemn  emphasis 
to  those  in  every  relation  of  life. 

Let  us  then,  said  Mr.  B.,  take  no  rash  step.  Let  the  slave- 
holding  States  all  act  together;  let  them  make  a  united 
demand  on  the  Northern  States  as  States,  not  on  the  shuffling 
politicians  at  Washington,  who,  so  far  as  extreme  men  are 
concerned  are  the  political  ephemera  of  the  day,  who  were 
generated  in  sectionalism,  and  could  not  politically  survive 
a  month  if  the  corrupt,  atmosphere  in  which  they  live  and 
have  their  being,  could  be  purified  by  the  more  healthy 
tone  of  a  true  public  sentiment.  Let  it  be  demanded  that 
the  slavery  question  be  forever  taken  from  the  halls  of  Con- 
gress, where  the  slave  institution  has  so  long  been  made 
the  foot  ball  of  sectional  demagogues,  and  moved  as  men 
are  on  a  chess-board  to  win  a  game  or  answer  a  selfish 
purpose.  Justice  to  the  slave-holder — the  best  interests  of 
the  slave-holder,  nay,  the  peace  and  harmony  of  the  country 
all  require  that  it  should  at  as  early  a  period  as  practicable, 


15 

by  constitutional  amendments,  be  taken  otit  of  the  hands  of 
trading  politicians,  forever  settled,  and  forever  taken  from 
the  halls  of  Congress. 

Mr.  B.  said,  by  the  border  and  other  States  not  now  seced- 
ing and  remaining  in  the  Union,  these  guaranties  he  most 
sincerely  believed,  and  did  not  doubt  could  be  obtained,  and 
by  amendments  and  a  re-construction'  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment— the  reasons  for  secession  being  removed- — the  States 
that  had  seceded  would  joyfully  be  hailed  on  returning  to  the 
Union,  and  the  Southern  and  Northern  States  rejoiced  at  the 
dangers  which  they  had  escaped,  forgetting  past  dissensions, 
remembering  in  a  generous  patriotism  only  glories  and  friend- 
ship, would,  like  Brutus  and  Cassius,  after  an  angry  quarrel, 
become  the  better  friends. 

Mi-.  B.  said  that  he  had  heard  with  pleasure  mingled  with 
pain  his  friend,  the  Senator  from  Brunswick.  While  the 
opinions  declared  by  him  in  favor  of  separate  State  action  and 
despairing  of  the  continuance  of  the  present  federal  Union 
gave  him  pain,  he  would  say,  that  the  Senator  had,  on  his 
part,  conducted  the  debate  with  a  dignity,  an  ability  and  par- 
liamentary decorum  that  contributed  to  lessen  the  pain  inci- 
dent to  such  differences  of  opinion.  He  Mr.  B.,  like  the 
Senator,  admired  the  history  of  South  Carolina — to  one  of 
her  lamented  sons,  Robt.  Y.  Hayne,  he  was  more  attached 
than  to  any  member  of  Congress  with  whom  it  had  been  his 
fortune  to  form  an  acquaintance  ; — he  had  lived  in  the  same 
house  with  him  at  Washington,  had  been  honored  with  his 
intimacy,  had  received  acts  of  kindness  from  him,  when  him- 
self comparatively  a  young  man,  that  he  could  never  forget. 
He  was  the  gentleman,  the  scholar,  the  statesman  and  soldier. 
South  Carolina  had  left  the  family  of  States.  He  had  always 
contended  that  she  or  any  other  State  had  that  right,  as  a 
last  resort ;  and  while  he|regretted  that  she  had  not,  in  con- 
cert wTith  all  the  slaveholding  States,  united  in  a  common  de- 
mand upon  Northern  States  for  a  redress  of  our  wrongs  and 
all  acted  together,  if  refused,  yet  he  had  no  word  of  reproach 
for  her.  While  she  acted  on  the  defensive  and  confined  her- 
self to  that  line  of  action,  he  would  say  that  she  was  entitled 
to  a  common  sympathy  and  a  common  resistance  against 
force,  come  from  where  it  may.  He  could  not  permit  him- 
self to  doubt  that  her  own  wisdom  and  patriotism,  as  well  as 
respect  for  her  sister  States  of  the  South,  would  induce  her  to 
pursue  the  course  indicated.  In  secession,  without  all  proper 
efforts  to  settle  difficulties  with  the  North,  he  could  not  see 
the  benefits  which  the  Senator  from  Brunswick  saw7.  He 
could  only  see  in  it,  at  this  time,  an  incalculable  aggravation 


16 

of  present  evils.  There  would  probably  be  twenty  fugitive 
slaves  in  the  border  States  for  one  at  present,  on  a  hostile 
border  line  of  fiteen  hundred  miles,  with  no  law  to  recover 
them,  civil  war  in  a  few  weeks  would  be  inevitable — a  stand- 
ing army  in  North-Carolina  alone  of  fifteen  or  twenty  thous- 
and men,  with  an  annual  expenditure  for  its  support,  with 
some  war  steamers  to  defend  our  seacoast,  amounting  to  at 
least  six  millions  per  annum,  besides  coming  in  conflict  with 
the  glorious  principle  of  our  Bill  of  Rights,  that  standing 
armies  are  dangerous  to  liberty. 

In  entering  on  this  movement  of  secession,  he,  Mr.  13., 
would  like,  before  taking  the  leap,  to  know  what  kind  of  gov- 
ernment we  are  to  come  under?  Before  a  family  removes 
from  one  house  to  another,  a  prudent  head  of  the  family  al- 
ways examines  the  new  premises  to  be  occupied.  He  would 
go  under  no  government  that  did  not  take  great  State  right 
and  democratic  principles  as  its  fundamental  doctrines.  Any 
constitution  that  does  not  acknowledge  that  all  government, 
to  be  just,  is  derived  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  is  a 
usurpation.  He  doubted  not  that  the  great  mass  of  our  coun- 
trymen were  right  on  this  principle;  yet,  when  standing 
armies  and  military  power  are  in  the  ascendant,  all  history 
proves  that  they  override  the  authority  of  the  people  and  be- 
come the  government. 

It  may  be  said  that  he  had  been  too  frank  in  stating  the 
dangers  of  disunion.  It  required  more  moral  courage  to  do 
this,  boldly,  than  to  pass  over  and  conceal  the  dangers.  The 
man  of  true  moral  courage,  in  every  age,  before  entering  on 
an  expedition  or  adventure,  looks  the  difficulties  squarely  in 
the  face  and  candidly  weighs  and  states  them,  to  see  if  he  is 
justified  in  taking  the  proposed  course  of  action.  Tie  would 
now,  in  conclusion,  say,  that  let  all  the  slaveholding  States 
meet  together,  in  convention,  make  a  definite  demand  of  the 
North  of  such  constitutional  guarantees  as  are  demanded  by 
our  safety  and  honor,  as  equals  in  the  Union — a-much  more  ef- 
fectual plan  than  for  fifteen  separate  States  to  make  as  many 
different  demands;  and  if  those  demands  are  refused,  it  will 
then  be  conclusive  evidence  that  wrong  to  us  is  intended,  and 
will  justify  us  in  the  eyes  of  the  whole  world  in  standing  to 
onr  arms  and  seeking  safety  in  a  separate  form  of  govern- 
ment. 


